Hello sir

pollution monitoring of river

if passing through a urban area: the point sources - domestic and industrial effluents directly released in to the river - thus the sectors will be surrounding landuses - includes residential, institutional, industrial, recreational etc

the non point sources - the runoff from roads which carry the pollutants settled from atmosphere reaching to the river, runoff from the urban agricultural lands which carry the fertilizer content - thus the other land use sectors - agriculture, transportation. The absence of the green spaces along the roads as well as green spaces along the river length can also contribute to the pollution.

Under service sector:

the other activities like no solid waste collection system - direct dumping into river , dumping along the river or open spaces.

Dumping yard leachate overflow and underground seepage into river

percent sewerage cover in the area - if it is less the industrial, residential others release the effluents into pits which also leads to pollution of river due to the underground seepage, this again depends on the soil percolation.

Washing activity ( clothes of patients in hospitals, residential etc both contribute at different level)

motor cycle, other vehicles servicing centers leads to different kind of pollution

the treated effluents from stp, etp may also contribute if there is no check on them by cpcb

In my opinion it will depend on the aim of the study. There are so many pollutants that can be found in rivers, ranging from those that arise from industrial and urban sources to those that arise from the geological composition of sediments. Organic and inorganic pollutants, all them may be released by various sources. Trying to track different pollutant sources may be a tricky task; most of the times, pollutant ratios or profiles may give a clue. Additionally, special attention should be given to persistent pollutants, which may not be detected in water samples, but may be accumulated in biota and may be affecting the food-chain.

Awesome answers, thank you so much for all your informative lines which cross many miles to reach me. I expect some more on this regard dear friends

Must identify aim and pollutants first. Eg nitrate would need to find point or diffuse sources, check soils and denitrification rates, check for surface water bodies, the list goes on but the pollutant first will

Lead to all other answers.

I would consider anything that adversely affect the health of a river as a pollutant. A healthy river has the following characteristics:

• Natural Flow (Variable magnitude, timing, changing flow rate, duration, frequency)

• Good Quality Water (Optimal temperature, dissolved oxygen, nutrients, pH, hardness, salinity; negligible heavy metal content, nitrogen, phosphate and other toxic contents; negligible presence of fecal coliform)

• Sediment transport (Natural transport of sediments – bedload, suspended load and dissolved load – play major role in river health by creating point bars and flood plains)

• Riparian vegetation (Plant species in the riparian area plays major role in providing food habitat to animal biota in river)

• Diverse fish and other species (A healthy river support the life of fish by providing areas where they can survive, and food – i.e., invertebrates)

• An active river management community

Now, coming to your question about sections, it is to be defined in accordance with the situations and locations you are dealing with. It can either be classified based on sources (as you have indicated in your question) or on the basis of the type of pollutants.

Selecting a pollutant of interest is the first step. Investigating adjacent land use and relating it to water quality is the next step. Ploting the concentrations or spatial distributions of you pollutant of interest on a contour plot will give a picture of its point source or diffuse pattern of entry into the aquatic system.